Friday, April 06, 2007, I went to tend to our family pet, Dora the hamster. Before getting too far into the duties, I noticed her cage lid was off. I asked the kids when they had played with her last. Isaiah looked horrified. He said, “I was playing with her this morning.” Oooooppsss! A hamster gone for an entire day: that can’t be good.

We scoured the house: every pile of closes, the dirty clothes basket, the clean clothes baskets, our shoes, the beds, under all our appliances, under all the furniture, in all the toy boxes and all the closets. No Dora.

The kids both prayed as we went to bed that God would help them find Dora and Dora would be okay. Isaiah felt terrible! I half-heartedly prayed for the Lord’s will to be done knowing that we had left the front door open for about an hour last night and there were plenty of places she could have gone and been, well, to say it gently, squished. I told the kids that we will give Dora until next Thursday (free hamster day at the local pet store) to show up, and then I would get them a new one.

We put out a plate of spinach for her so we could see her if she came out to eat. My bedtime came and there we still no Dora.

Well, a bit after midnight, I woke from my dreams to feel something on my hand. As I opened my eyes, I saw something in the light of the clock radio jump off the head of my bed. Half my body told me to go back to bed because it was just a dream, but the other part staggered out of bed to find the flashlight. Paul asked once what I was doing, then he rolled over, put a pillow over his head and fell back to sleep. I searched with my little flashlight behind our bed, in all the corners and through all the covers. Still no Dora. So, I had been sleeping

…

but I hadn’t looked in the closet yet. I opened the closet door, surveyed the closet in the light of the little flashlight. There standing no her hind legs in my flip-flop stood Dora. She wasn’t quite ready to be caught yet, so I burrowed through a few things in the closet and finally had my hands on Dora.

Needless to say, the only reason she was found was because two children took it up with God. Paul pointed out to the kids that God sent her to my hand because Paul would have slept thought Dora eating all his whiskers off his face and never woken up.